Hey all, here's what we've been doing this week.
We've had to get up pretty early to get up to the school by 8 am to decorate our classrooms, but two of them are locked and others have a lot of stuff in them...we've done as much as possible so far. We usually have to stay until 3, so we've been pretty bored up at the school. There's so much that needs to be done before we start teaching, but it's really hard to know where to begin. For lunch we usually eat at a "comedor," which is someone's house across the street from the school. Then we go down the road, check how our house is coming and go down to the river. We're getting really anxious/excited to move into our house because we're still at the hotel eating at the hotel restaurant. It's been good, but we're ready to move on.
Sometimes I feel like a naturalist in the 19th century looking at new plants and insects and trying to learn what they are, but some things are really familiar, like straight and tall pine trees that look like red pines, oak trees that remind me of burr oak and even monarch butterflies among the cornfields. There are a lot of new sights, too. Outside of the classroom windows, there is a wall of green, and the school yard has an amazing view of green mountains with clouds swirling around the peaks and a waterfall in the distance.
Tonight we got to spend the evening at some hot springs just outside the city with all of the foreign teachers plus Honduran teachers and administrators. We got to play volleyball in the pool and have a potluck with steak on the grill; it felt almost like a family gathering, so that was fun. It was cool to see fireflies, stars and lightening in the distance all at the same time as we sat in natural hot tubs.
Oh, and one more thing. We found our wedding pictures online, so you can take a look if you'd like. Go to http://www.kleinphotography.com/, click online ordering, weddings, then Leah and Aren. You have to put in your email address, and then you should be able to see our pictures. We're pretty happy with how they turned out, there are some really nice ones.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Saturday, August 23, 2008
First impressions
It's been a few days now and we've had the chance to explore and get some questions answered (although there are still quite a few more!). There are so many things that I want to update you all on, so I guess I'll do it in categories.
Luggage: We're still waiting on Aren's luggage, but we got an email that it is in San Pedro Sula at the airport, so at least we know where it is. Some more teachers came in today, so we are hoping that they will be bringing his suitcase with them to Gracias tonight. Aren's excited to change his pants finally! **Edit: We got the suitcase! Yay!
Housing: We know for sure where we are going to be living this year now. The bad news is that it's not quite finished being built yet (they've said it will take about 5 days to finish, so we're hoping for under 2 weeks). There's a lot of good news, though. Our house will be brand new with all new furniture (we think), it's right next to the school so we can sleep in a little later in the morning, it has a beautiful yard with coffee and banana tress, and just down the road there is an incredible mountain river. Here are some pictures of the house and the surrounding areas (you can click on pictures to make them a little bigger):
Our front porch
Our yard
Aren doing what he does best
The river
School: On Thursday and Friday, we had orientation. We found out that Aren will be teaching 5th grade plus 6-8th grade science, and I will be teaching 2nd grade plus 6-8th grade Bible and 6th grade language arts. It sounds like we'll be pretty busy! The school year starts on Sept. 3, and it sounds like we'll have a day of orientation with the parents the day before that, so we have a little over a week to prepare.
For those of you who don't know, the school changed hands recently and is now being run by a church in Tegucigalpa. A lot of changes are being made, and for the most part, they are all very good: they are fixing up the school yard and buildings, providing better housing for the teachers (the house Aren and I were originally set to live in had a pigsty for a back yard!), and generally organizing everything much better. Here's a picture of the school from the street:
Gracias: We've been having a lot of fun doing some exploring in the city and up the mountain near the school. Of all of the places I've been in Honduras, this is one of the most beautiful, natural, clean and temperate places I have been, so we are really excited about living here. There are tons of bugs, some beautiful (we saw around 20 different kinds of butterflies on a walk to the school today) and some not-so-pretty:
Strange and creepy moldy moth bug thing
Etc: Two other things that don't really fit anywhere else...First, when we got to the school, there was another American teacher there for orientation who will be teaching in La Union, and it just so happened that it was Jake Compaan, who we graduated from high school with. How crazy is that? Holland Christian is taking over the world, apparently.
Also, today Aren got a genuine Honduran haircut for a grand total of 30 lempiras (around $1.50). It turned out pretty well, especially considering the price, and he even got the experience of being trimmed with a straight razor:
Well, that's about all for now. We miss you all, and we'll update again as soon as we have more to talk about!
Luggage: We're still waiting on Aren's luggage, but we got an email that it is in San Pedro Sula at the airport, so at least we know where it is. Some more teachers came in today, so we are hoping that they will be bringing his suitcase with them to Gracias tonight. Aren's excited to change his pants finally! **Edit: We got the suitcase! Yay!
Housing: We know for sure where we are going to be living this year now. The bad news is that it's not quite finished being built yet (they've said it will take about 5 days to finish, so we're hoping for under 2 weeks). There's a lot of good news, though. Our house will be brand new with all new furniture (we think), it's right next to the school so we can sleep in a little later in the morning, it has a beautiful yard with coffee and banana tress, and just down the road there is an incredible mountain river. Here are some pictures of the house and the surrounding areas (you can click on pictures to make them a little bigger):
Our front porch
Our yard
Aren doing what he does best
The river
School: On Thursday and Friday, we had orientation. We found out that Aren will be teaching 5th grade plus 6-8th grade science, and I will be teaching 2nd grade plus 6-8th grade Bible and 6th grade language arts. It sounds like we'll be pretty busy! The school year starts on Sept. 3, and it sounds like we'll have a day of orientation with the parents the day before that, so we have a little over a week to prepare.
For those of you who don't know, the school changed hands recently and is now being run by a church in Tegucigalpa. A lot of changes are being made, and for the most part, they are all very good: they are fixing up the school yard and buildings, providing better housing for the teachers (the house Aren and I were originally set to live in had a pigsty for a back yard!), and generally organizing everything much better. Here's a picture of the school from the street:
Gracias: We've been having a lot of fun doing some exploring in the city and up the mountain near the school. Of all of the places I've been in Honduras, this is one of the most beautiful, natural, clean and temperate places I have been, so we are really excited about living here. There are tons of bugs, some beautiful (we saw around 20 different kinds of butterflies on a walk to the school today) and some not-so-pretty:
Strange and creepy moldy moth bug thing
Etc: Two other things that don't really fit anywhere else...First, when we got to the school, there was another American teacher there for orientation who will be teaching in La Union, and it just so happened that it was Jake Compaan, who we graduated from high school with. How crazy is that? Holland Christian is taking over the world, apparently.
Also, today Aren got a genuine Honduran haircut for a grand total of 30 lempiras (around $1.50). It turned out pretty well, especially considering the price, and he even got the experience of being trimmed with a straight razor:
Well, that's about all for now. We miss you all, and we'll update again as soon as we have more to talk about!
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
We made it!
And so our adventure begins...
We've made it so far through two full days of traveling, and we are now at a hotel in Gracias, the nearest city to the school where we will be teaching. We've had a few setbacks along the way, most notably Aren's suitcase with all his clothes in it not arriving to the airport with the rest of our luggage. It sounds like we will get his luggage back by Saturday though, we hope!
Tomorrow we have orientation and we will hopefully find out more about the school and about where we are going to live. We will let you all know more when we find it out, but for now, we're super tired, so good-night!
We've made it so far through two full days of traveling, and we are now at a hotel in Gracias, the nearest city to the school where we will be teaching. We've had a few setbacks along the way, most notably Aren's suitcase with all his clothes in it not arriving to the airport with the rest of our luggage. It sounds like we will get his luggage back by Saturday though, we hope!
Tomorrow we have orientation and we will hopefully find out more about the school and about where we are going to live. We will let you all know more when we find it out, but for now, we're super tired, so good-night!
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